Swede with broken neck sent home on painkillers
Published: 29 Feb 12 14:44 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/39408/20120229/
A man from northern Sweden was sent home from his local clinic with a handful of painkillers, after falling down the stairs of his house and smashing his head through a door in December last year.
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The doctors at the clinic twisted and turned the man's head in all directions during the examination, finally concluding that he must be suffering from a severe muscle sprain in the neck.
However, as his neck pain wouldn't go away and he became dizzy when standing up, the man went back to the doctor's surgery, where his arm and shoulder were x-rayed. He was then sent home with some painkillers, reports the paper.
Three weeks went by in the same fashion before the man gave up and went for a new consult at a different clinic. While there, his neck was finally x-rayed and after the images had been examined, the man was sent to nearby larger town Östersund.
At the Östersund clinic, he was told that the injuries were too complex to be treated there and the man was told to hold completely still, as the vertebral column was unstable.
According to the doctors at the Umeå hospital where the man was sent next, his neck was in fact broken.
The man had been very lucky, however, as his neck only remained in position when he was lying down.
Every time he moved or sat up his vertebral column moved three centimetres, which is enough to risk causing paralysis, according to the paper.
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You should be woried--very worried--about the healthcare system in Sweden.
Do a search to see the numerous stories of screw-ups.
Roll them heads and start hiring professionals!!!!
Had a really stiff neck with dizziness, went back to the hospital and was prescribed powerful pain killers.
My company paid for private physio and she was brilliant but insisted that I have some further xrays before she commenced any treatment and yep I had broken the top two bones in my neck,so 6 months off work and five years of physio/chiropractic treatment followed.But at the end of the day this chap is a lucky guy like I was........It can happen!
Ask almost anyone in the USA about healthcare in Sweden and the typical answer would be something along the lines of "the waits are too long for routine procedures and the government looks for ways to save money rather than save lives." By and large, the criticism would be correct.
This case is a perfect example of the problem with socialized medicine, Swedish style. A person falls down a flight of stairs and gets admitted to an emergency department(ED). The doctor on duty has a simple choice. Choice A: he can get a neck x-ray on every patient that arrives in his ED after a fall or Choice B: he can examine the patient and try an determine if the neck injury merits an x-ray.
A doctor in the USA opts for choice A. Everyone gets a neck x-ray. Very expensive. Very wasteful. Completely unnecessary most of the time.
A doctor in Sweden opts for choice B. Saves money for sure. And, he will be correct most of the time; but not all of the time because it is impossible to determine the full extent of a neck injury without an x-ray.
There you have it. The problem here is not a bad doctor, but a healthcare system in Sweden that makes decisions based on financial cost.
Really, fall down the stairs, put your head thru a door, and you go to your local clinic? what a fool!
the local clinic is for when you have a flu or cold, or a sprain, serious injury merits an actual hospital visit!
What they refer to as "local clinic" is usually not equipped to handle any severe cases. They have no emergency room, nor staff trained for that purpose.
Granted, they should have called for an ambulance to transport the man to a proper hospital where they could examine the damage thoroughly, not send him home with painkillers.
Be VERY VERY CONCERNED! I would even consider not moving/living in Sweden unless you can get private healthcare through your employer (although private is not particularly that great either, they just listen to you more). I myself am in the process of moving out of Sweden. Healthcare is not the only reason, but definitely plays a major role. Just read krrodman's post. I can speak through experience to say he's spot on!
The same advice seems to apply if you are living in Sweden; to be fair, I once needed some stitches for a cut, and the Swede hospital did that alright - but against that, I had my hearing damaged by incompetent medical procedure at CityAkuten.
This poor guy: it seemed to take a long time for someone to decide his neck was broken
The problem is that when you show up at the emergency room here, if you're not gushing blood all over their floors through a severed artery, they will first ask you if you have booked an appointment. Yes, that's right, you need an appointment for the emergency room. Then they will tell you that you have to go to your local clinic and get an appointment and come back another day. Once you have an appointment they can make you wait up to 6 hours (beyond the time stated in your appointment) before anyone sees you, and in my case, another hour in the examination room waiting for the doctor to show up. Were it not for the fact that I self medicated, I would have been dead - I was suffering a major vascular incident.
A Swedish friend of mine left Sweden for good never to return. he said, and I quote "That accursed country killed my wife". She was having a heart attack and he drove her straight to the emergency room. They made her wait 4 hours and she died in his arms in the waiting room. No one cared.
Mistakes and wrong diagnosis can and do happen in all clinics and hospitals there is nothing strage about that. We often read the negative parts of the story. Seldom do they write about the good things the medical staff do.We need to rethink our approach on how to deal with humans as humans and not just personla numbers. Some Buddhist teachings could help.
I have an environmental condition that my vårdcentral says it cannot diagnose properly or treat, and refers me to the local Allergy Clinic for treatment. The Allergy Clinic then repeatedly refuses the vårdcentral's referrals, referring me back to it, my health having now deteriorated markedly and continuing to do so.
When I complained to Socialstyrelsen, citing a blatant and life-threatening denial of care, they accepted the complaint, and then decided there was no problem with the Allergy Clinic's actions. Surreal!
karex,
I have met many Swedes in France, Spain and the U.S. who said they left Sweden for their health.
I waited nine hours at Emergency here. It was only a broken limb, subsequent to being hit by a car. But hey did not check me for possible head injuries, which should have been routine anywhere with proper procedures.
An elderly woman who had suffered a stroke, had been waiting only six hours.